Pedal

Chris, Your new business model is getting mixed feedback. The funny thing is that nobody would have objected if you had launched it differently. Let’s say with a ad banner like this: AD-FREE BROWSING The increasingly number of mobile phone and tablet users, can now participate on Computer Audiophile more efficiently. Ad free browsing saves bandwidth, increases the speed and provides more text on small screens. The price is $4.99/month and includes free use of our new Buy/Sell forum and selected discounts from various suppliers. Click here for more details. ----------- ;-)

Two important rules to follow in Hi-fi life: 1.” Warm up” your ears with normal sound levels at the beginning of a listening session. Increase the volume gradually. Do not play at “max levels” until after 30 minutes, letting your ears adapt first. 2. Never expose your ears to loud sound levels 2 days in a row. According to the doctors, our hearing needs (at least) 48 hours to recover.

THE SHORT VERSION: Cables do sound different. That is out of the question. The main concern is whether the differences are significant for the final sound quality and if the (eventual) difference justifies the cost.

Oh, I have fond memories about these top-of-the-line cables from Audioquest. All silver conductors/Teflon insulation. Back in the early 90s, I had a complete set of AQ Diamond loudspeaker cables and interconnects. Source was MicroMega Trio CD-drive, Dynamic Precision amps and Sonus Faber Extrema loudspeakers. At that time you could actually afford buying into the top of the line cables, except for Transparent who was already gone insane, price wise. Those Audioquest cables had a special way of “energizing” the music. The music became more “interesting”, it grabbed your attention in a special way. They also got the music more “out of the box and into the room”. I remember how baffled I was when I discovered this effect. Regrettable, I sold them a couple of years later when switching to mono amps which required other lengths. Since then I have been a cable cheapskate for 20 years, but a recent experience with Valhalla interconnects has awakened the cable beast in me. With a little help from my friend, I managed to obtain almost* all of the Valhalla sound quality with an unshielded DIY silver/cotton construction. The improvement from my previous no-label “ordinary IC” was like upgrading a DAC or a preamp. That big. *Maybe 98,4%? Ha-ha.

It’s is quite clear that the “mainstream” market is for (less than) CD quality. High-Rez is for the anoraks. -The few enthusiasts willing to spend much time and resources on small improvements. -Same as this forum. Computeraudiophile.com is a place for dedicated audiophiles in search for that little bit extra. This is quite normal. Most branches (cars, food, clothing, travel, etc) has a "high end" niche apart from the mass marked/mainstream.

The Extra-Terrestrial was travelling from planet to planet mapping intelligent life across the galaxies. Arriving on earth he sampled a chimpanzee and a human. He could swear that he perceived a difference between the two species, but running the DNA sample through his mobile laboratory, he found remarkable little difference. They were 98,4% identical. -A null result, practically speaking. The test result puzzled him, so he checked some more samples just to be sure. To his surprise he discovered that there were lager differences in the DNA code between 2 random humans, than between the 2 species. “They are all the same” he reported back to his headquarters.

You can repeat your listening test, but with a twist: Don't do A/B on a single track, but play the full album "blind". Then you eliminate the memory effect as described by Bob Stuart. Red Book is veeery good indeed! The improvement I hear (in general) when moving from 16/44 to 24/96 or higher, is more low level information. More texture and a more fluid sound. Red book has a mild degree of dryness. Surprisingly this is easiest to hear in the bass area. Bass, both acoustical and electric, is more "ripe" and "analogue" sounding in hi-rez than with Red Book. I guess 24bit is simply more accurate than 16 bit. In the treble region the differences are less important. Although you hear better microdynamics with hi-rez, when they strike a cymbal or a bell, the "attack" is quicker and more "sudden". (BTW: My XX software player and NOS1 DAC has a special feature which improves on usual Red Book shortcomings. With my previous DAC, the diference in the treble was bigger between 16/44 and 24/96).

This is textbook example how not to conduct a listening test, if you want to identify tiny sound differences. The reason is that the A/B method works against humans hearing abilities (when typically performed rapidly). Unfortunately we cannot compare 2 sounds simultaneously, in the way we do with visual samples. If you want to distinguish between two TVs, you can simply put them side by side and let them reproduce the same picture. Then you have all the time in the world to compare and identify any quality differences. You can let your eyes work back and forth as long as necessary. But with sound, you have to listen to one at the time, and then compare from memory. That’s where the AB and ABX methods collide with the way humans perceive sound. When comparing from memory the first impression lingers on in your brain. The added detail you heard from A will be applied to B. This effect increases the more you switch back and forward. In the end they will both sound the same. It’s all explained here (page 3): TAS 194: Meridian Audio's Bob Stuart Talks with Robert Harley | AVguide -------------------- Blind listening tests as a principle is very beneficiary since it eliminates any bias. But to avoid the memory effect it takes longer listening sessions and you have to avoid the typical rapid A/B switches. The mathematicians among us love the ABX because it is a statistical method of validating a test. And the more switches the more reliable the math become. But, then at the same time, the less trustable your hearing becomes. Your hearing seems to be excellent and trustable, as long as you stay away from those rapid ABs!

Quoted from Wikipedia: It represents a musical turning point for Led Zeppelin, as they began to use more layering and production techniques in recording their songs. Much of this album was recorded in Spring 1972 at Stargroves, the country estate in Berkshire, which was owned by Mick Jagger, through the use of the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio. My guess: The inferior sound quality is due to the increased use of “production techniques”. Although the Stones Mobile where quite up to date, the mixing consoles of the time was loaded with awful sounding op-amps and poor potensionmeters. On top of it they applied noise reduction, killing the life and sparkle in the treble. All in all, the more tracks and the more mixing/post-production involved, the worse it sounded. Wiki link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houses_of_the_Holy

This hi-rez debate is not very important to me. And I didn’t spend that much ink on it, neither here on CA or at the www.phasure.com forum. But hi-rez is here to stay. The early trials of SACD and DVD-A, started about 10 years ago, as physical media. Since then we have seen a rapid growth in computer audio and downloads. What we call “hi-rez” is already the standard format of recording. Practically all new music today is mastered at 24/96 or 24/192. More and more people have enough internet band width and an entry level 24/96 DAC costs pocket money and can be fitted in your pocket too. So, in the future “hi-rez” downloads will be the norm even among non-audiophiles. The selection of great sounding, modern recordings will increase and everybody will be happy.

Both camps do the same mistake: -Hi-rez skeptics say its wasted money because all you get is upsampled red book. The hi-rez fans says CD sucks because of hard, brittle, uninvolving, etc sound. But each format should be judged for its potential, not from a (randomly) bad implementation of it. To my ears hi-rez is superior when done correctly. Never mind the early hi-rez titles sounding more or less bad (most of them originated from old scrappy analog master tapes). The same goes for Red Book 16/44. CD replay of today is completely free of any harsh or brittle sound. CD reply has become almost perfect in my ears. I hear no “additive” distortion from CD any longer. This can be experienced even from inexpensive DACs costing less than $1000 together with hard disk reply, substituting expensive CD transports. Stepping up to dedicated high end DACs like my previous DIY Buffalo II, I think the quality of CD was at least on pair with good analog. The final frontier, however, was reached when I bought the NOS1 DAC. –You want believe how much low level detail and micro dynamics this DAC can dig out of your old CD collection! You don’t know the boundaries of Red Book unless you have listened to something like the NOS1 DAC.

No need to trash CD. Modern, quality DACs make CD sound almost perfect. -So pure and resolved. Stepping up to 24/96 just gives a tad more fluidity, slightly better micro dynamics and a little bit more low level information. This is my experience from owning and trying out some of the best DACs in my own system. Currently I am using the Phasure NOS1 DAC, which is by far the best I have heard. Together with the accompanying software player XXHE, they lift 16/44 playback up to another level. In fact, the special “Arc Prediction” feature gives you the impulse response of a high-rez recording. (The creator of this marvel is no other than PeterSt, so he knows a thing or ten about the subject). PS: I had a great time with my old 3.6s some years ago. My present loudspeaker system is different, but I still use a full size ribbon tweeter similar to the Magnepan.

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So yes, to open another Pandora's box. Hires sounds way too soft to me. There's no life in it. Now, this is an interesting statement. You do hear a difference, but you don’t like it. The funny thing is that we probably hear (more or less) the same thing, but perceive it differently. What you call “too soft”, I perceive as “more fluid” and closer to natural instruments. 16/44 in comparison sounds slightly “dry” and slightly “reproduced” in my ears. -It might sound kind of more “impressive” initially, but in the long run I find 16/44 to have slight “mechanical” character. I write “slight” because the differences between 16/44 and 24/96 are subtle, not “big”. Aslo , I think 24/96 has more low level and acoustic information. Usually the sound field expands on hi-rez, compared with 16/44.

Gentlemen, let me remind you about an important matter: The recording and playback chain is full of errors, small and big. Every single component introduces distortion along the signal chain, starting with the microphone and ending with your loudspeakers/room acoustics. Active electronics distort more than passive ones (cables). And transducers (mics/loudspeakers) distort more than electronics. But, and this is my point, the errors adds up. It accumulates through the chain. Even if your loudspeakers have 2% distortion, you are still able to distinguish between 2 different op-amps inside your DAC with distortion figures as low as 0,001%. Same goes with risetime and bandwidth. Although your loudspeakers are heavily limited in high frequency extension, you still can distinguish between CD and hi-rez. Because of the accumulative effect, it is always worth optimising the individual links in the chain of a hi-fi system.